Labaik Allahuma Labaik- My Hajj Experience

May Allah be pleased with us, what an experience. The buzz is so different to any I have experienced on any other holidays I have been on. As soon as we landed in jeddah airport and we stepped off the plane onto the runway, this blast of hot air hit me all over and made me think what??? and then I looked to my left and saw the aeroplane’s engine fan slowly rotating so i calmed down thinking oh it is the heat from the engine.

After the whole immigration and baggage collection palaver we stepped outside from the airport into the same heat from before, my face fell when I realised that the heat I felt earlier was in fact the normal heat in this holy city and not from the fan of the aeroplane’s engine. Oh dear, how do people cope in this weather? But they do, alhamdulillah as we will have to for the next 3 weeks.

The day after we arrived in Saudi, we went to the one and only masjidul haram, a masjid where your sex does not determine where you do your salat, men praying beside women praying beside men, Allahu akbar. I have never seen any building the size of it in my entire life. Maybe there is a bigger one out there I don’t know. The sight, size and feel of it is just magnificent. No discrimination of any sort, you do not feel any LEWD looks on you. People are on their best behaviour, they try not to swear, backbite or complain. Everybody is just focused on praying to Allah or glorifying Allah.

I am so grateful to Allah for making me and my husband 1 of this year’s pilgrims while I am young and fit enough to be here. I saw a lot of old people there that made me give my thanks to Allah that I am able to do it now. It is 1 of the 5 pillars of Islam so as long as you can afford it and are fit enough to do it, it becomes compulsory on you. There are so many old people here that you just have to ignore the fact that people are pushing through and just get on with it. If you complain about how hard it is what should the old and frail do then?

Al masjid al haram was a sight to behold, its always clean because the cleaners are always there to clean up the smallest of dirts as soon as it gets there.  The amount of people there morning, noon and night is unbelievable that you wonder if some people have any toilet breaks at all.

Tawaf was quite hectic especially the first one I did which was before asr so you can imagine the heat that time of day, there were watering fans around but it is that hot that you don’t feel it on you at times. May Allah subhana wa tala answer all our duas, accept our umrah and hajj, Aamin. I found sa’ee very emotional, I kept thinking of Hajar and her determination to get water to her infant son before he could die. She must have been very thirsty herself but she ignored that and found the strength to run between  al-safa and al-marwah hills in search of water 7 times. It is truly a mother’s love that will make someone do that.

The 5 days of hajj was very hectic. Of course I had been warned but it didn’t prepare me enough for how hard it really was and to imagine that it was much harder for the people in the time of our beloved prophet (saw) but of course they would not think so as that was all they knew. We had our shower, put on our ihram then made out niyah (intention for hajj) and then set off for mina, the whole day and night was spent here. The next day was spent in Arafat where we had to remain in supplication to the almighty from after mid-day till almost sun down. Of course we had breaks in between but it was such a solemn experience that in sha Allah i hope to do it once more. Things were going okay until we had to leave arafat for muzdaliffah, it was a long and tiring wait for the coach after the whole ritual at Arafat. Maybe it would have been a whole lot easier to walk to muzdaliffah as some others did but we were being careful not to lose touch with our group, not even for half an hour of the hectic hajj period especially as we didn’t speak arabic.

Muzdaliffah is so dusty that if you hadn’t caught the coughing bout yet, you will catch it there. The feeling there can never be felt elsewhere. Everyone of us sleeping directly under the sky with no shelter above us. It sure does remind you of the presence of the almighty.  We picked the needed pebbles to use in jamarat and as soon as it was dawn, arrangements were made to start going back to mina from where after breakfast we walked to jamarat. By Allah it was a long walk but unbeknown to me, this wont be the hardest walk. I remember my mum warning me that if i dropped anything by accident no matter what it is, I musnt bend to pick it up as this could result in stampede which could then lead to death. We got to a point that I was so weak that I could have fainted if not for a kind lady who gave me a lucozade tablet. May Allah subhana wa ta ala bless her for noticing and coming to my aid. That lucozade was the “pick me up” I needed. We only used 7 pebbles for the large jamarat on this day which is the 3rd day of hajj. We went back to our apartment to wait for news of our sacrifice being completed then cut an inch off my hair and rest until we went to do tawaf and sa’ee after which we returned to spend the night at mina.

On the 4th day of hajj we went to throw stones at all 3 jamarat. We had to walk back to mina and this was the hardest walk of my life. It was so hot that my fingers swelled up so much that I was so scared, I had never experienced anything like it before, my feet swelled too. When we got to our tent in mina my doctor friend told me to hydrate myself and elevate my feet to let things return to normal and alhamdulillah they did after a few hours.

On the 5th day we spend the morning at mina then went to jamarat again to throw stones atall 3 jamarat and then went back to makkah to perform tawaf once more and then drink zamzam water  after which the hajj right is completed. May Allah subana wa ta ala make it a hajj mabroor for us.

It was quite a long coach ride to madinah but we stopped a couple of times on the way to stretch our legs. It was almost as hot at night as it was in the day. We arrived at our hotel at around 2:00 a.m and it didn’t take us long to check in even though there was a lot of us arriving at that time.

The call to prayer from the prophet’s mosque, now that is a sound worth waking up to. Masha Allah you need to see the beauty that is Al-Masjid an-Nabawi. It was a sight to behold and our hotel was just a few steps away from one of the back entrances so no excuse not to go and do salat there. I only wished I had done the 40 salat that is sunnah but in shaa Allah I will be able to on my next hajj. Madinah is such a beautiful place but I didn’t enjoy the beauty as I wanted to because I think hajj rights tired me out. My plan is if I get to perform another hajj before I die I will go madinah first so as to enjoy the sights and not get bored. In shaa Allah, i will spend 8 nights in madinah, go to makkah on the 9th day, hajj starts on the 10 th or 11th day, do a bit of resting and a bit of shopping on the 16th & 17th day then come back home on the 18th day. Now that sounds like a plan may Allah SWT make it a reality for me. Aamin.

I always used to say why cant people who go year in year out sponsor someone who is less fortunate than them instead, at least Allah will give them and the person they sponsored the reward of hajj but having been there myself, I fully understand the attraction and I feel a bit guilty that I am making a plan to go again when I could be sending someone less fortunate than me. (mind you, I do not have that kind of money now, so it’s all just a dream.)

I hope you enjoy reading my post, I’m sorry it took so long to post, as you may be able to tell, I started writing this article during hajj which was in October.

Leave me a comment of what you think please and I hope you come here to read my experience when you are making plans for your hajj.

Asalam aleikum warahmatuhllah wabarakatuhu.